With all the controversy going on at Ground Zero related to the Mosque debate, it's easy to lose sight of the positive impact spirituality has had on many 9/11 families grieving for loved ones. The experiences are chronicled in my book, "MESSAGES: Signs, Visits and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11."
On September 10, 2001, I was a happily married wife and mother of four children. My husband, Eamon McEneaney, was a U.S. Hall of Fame lacrosse player and Cantor Fitzgerald employee working on the 105th floor of the North Tower at the World Trade Center. That summer, however, I did have a concern. My husband kept repeating that he was soon going to die; he also told me and others about a terrorist attack he anticipated at work. Only a week before, he had assured me, "Bonnie, I just want you to know that I can handle my death now."
After my world exploded, I couldn't stop thinking about my husband's premonitions. Did other people have this same sense of foreboding? I had always been somewhat of a skeptic concerning the afterlife. Yet, within days of 9/11, I also began to have a sense that Eamon was still communicating with me, sending signs that he was okay and watching over his family. That's when I first started talking about this with other 9/11 families. What was happening to them? Were they having similar spiritual experiences?
I heard so many stories that I started taking notes. Then, in 2006, I left my job as an executive in the financial services industry where I had worked for 21 years to write a book. I began to feel it was almost like a calling. If something positive could come out of this awful tragic event, it would be the stories of love and faith that I was hearing. I ended up conducting nearly 200 interviews with families and friends of 9/11 victims--an interfaith sample of Christians, Jews, and one Muslim. They talked about receiving signs in nature--rainbows, birds and butterflies that appeared almost magically, as well as premonitions. Highly credible men and women told me about visitations where they saw or heard loved ones--or felt their embrace. In some cases, they would feel enveloped by a loved one's cologne or aftershave. It was truly amazing.
JoAnne, a 9/11 widow, told me that she had grown accustomed to receiving signs from her husband in the form of blinking lights, but nothing prepared her for seeing her husband's spirit standing in her kitchen.
Lisa, another friend, recounted how her four-year-old daughter, Jacie, was regularly having conversations with her father and some of the other men with whom he worked. They were telling the little girl knock-knock jokes. When Lisa showed her daughter a picture of her father and his friends, Jacie was able to correctly identify all of them by name, even though she hadn't even met them.
Alison outlined the times she had "felt" her 24-year-old son Welles around her. Many people remember reading about Welles (the man in the red bandana) who is credited with saving a large number of lives on 9/11. Since Welles's death, Alison has become accustomed to having people tell her that they have seen or heard Welles, who asked them to assure his parents that he was okay. Among those who have had these experiences are a member of the U.S. Olympic snowboarding team, who "heard" from Welles when he was on a ski lift in the Andes, as well as with several other friends and relatives.
Welles's roommate said, "One night I was on the couch watching TV ... I heard the key in the lock and I thought it was coming from a neighbor's apartment. Then I heard footsteps walking down my apartment hallway. That's when I realized it probably wasn't just a neighbor. I looked up and saw Welles ... He walked in like he always did. We had a little table where we always put our keys when we came in. He stopped there. He looked at me. I was kind of sitting up, against the arm of the couch, wide-eyed, and I remember gasping. I remember him saying, It's okay. I'm okay.' Ithink I am more at peace now with the fear of dying. Something tells me that one of the first spirits I will meet is Welles to make sure I'm okay."
Although we are taught religious doctrines from the time we are children, when there is a possible sign that, indeed, there is more to life than the highs and lows of our daily existence, we tend to remain either doubtful and unconvinced or embarrassed that others will think we are somehow gullible or foolish. We still remain a society that requires 'proof' to believe in anything we can't understand.
As a former skeptic who has been transformed into a believer, it's my hope that the spiritual stories surrounding 9/11 will help convince people that love is still the eternal message and that we can all experience faith, hope, and love no matter how tragic the circumstances. I firmly believe that we should take a break from hate and controversy and respect the anniversary of September 11th as a day in which we honor the memory of the victims--our fallen heroes--with love and remembrance.
Michael Moore: If the 'Mosque' Isn't Built, This Is No Longer America
Amb. Marc Ginsberg: 9/11/10 -- Unfinished Business Take #9
Terry Strada: September 11, 2001: The Beginning
9/11 Families Ask Mosque Protesters Not to Rally - DNAinfo.com
9-11 Families Group Lashes Out At Ground Zero Imam
The "Mosque" Debate Exposes Bias - Let's Move Beyond 9/11 as Public Policy
In 1974, in the hours between midnight and dawn, I had a vision, I couldn't even call it a premonition. I lived in Staten Island then, and had a view of Lower Manhattan out my living room and bedroom windows.
I saw the WTC gone, I saw buildings and their lights in the spaces where they used to be, I saw lots of smoke-like fog surrounding the area.
I worked on Wall St at the time, and I knew what I "saw" could not be real, as I had to go to work in the morning and I "knew" the WTC would still be there when the sun rose. But what I saw was so real, that I thought for a fleeting minute, Hey, maybe I *don't* have to go to work in the morning.
This photo from the Staten Island Advance, taken the evening of 9/11/01, is what I "saw" in the early morning of 1974:
http://media.silive.com/advance/photo/e7c91cf952940f59d1d0ccf3aefa029d_custom_665xauto.jpg
May the collective sound of 9/11 firemen and woman’s’ chirping responders that were once attached to these heroes before being pulverized, be magnified a million times and drilled into the skulls of this inept Bush team. May all of the ghosts of the 9/11 victims and all of the souls of our deceased warriors reach from their graves to haunt and demean every breathing second that remains.
Huffington Post should get a science page, and quickly. This religious nonsense is destroying earth; that's bad.
Ain't karma great!
I never knew Eamon very well, though we crossed paths in the athletic buildings at Cornell quite a few times. I watched him play, and always marveled at his incredible agility and ability to find one of his teammates open for a quick score.
In September 2002, I participated in the Face of America 9/11 Memorial Ride, a 3-day, 275-mile bike journey from Ground Zero to the Pentagon. Among the 1300+ riders were members of the NYPD and FDNY, first responders from Arlington, VA FD, a few Pentagon personnel, as well as a number of widows of NYC firefighters. It was a very emotional and moving experience.
When we checked in for the ride, they offered us arm bands, on which we could write the name(s) of anyone we knew who had lost their lives on 9/11. I only knew Eamon, so I put his name on my band and donned it for the ride. Over the next three days I thought about him often, and whenever another rider asked, I told them about this incredible kid, "Demon Eamon", I'd had the privilege of watching turn a sport into an art form. To this day, that arm band still resides in my bureau, and memories of Eamon, as well as of a lot of amazing people I met throughout that journey, will always be with me.
Spirituality is not a human institution. Spirituality is a consciousness, an awakening to and awareness of what you really are: a spiritual being occupying a human body. Often it takes years of life experiences and acquired wisdom to reach this awareness. Women, with their gift of intuition, generally reach the awareness first. Men, more often trapped by and insistent on strutting their egos, often can't get there. With spirituality you have the freedom to learn about your true nature and the nature of reality outside the limitations of the dogma and doctrine of religion.
You can be one or the other, religious or spiritual, but you can't be both. This why so many who are raised in religious institutions, and eventually develop a need for a deeper understanding, will ultimately reject the religion in favor of spirituality.
Spirituality is not a human institution. Spirituality is a consciousness, an awakening to and awareness of what you really are: a spiritual being occupying a human body. Often it takes years of life experiences and acquired wisdom to reach this awareness. Women, with their gift of intuition, generally reach the awareness first. Men, more often trapped by and insistent on strutting their egos, often can't get there. With spirituality you have the freedom to learn about your true nature and the nature of reality outside the limitations of the dogma and doctrine of religion.
You can be one or the other, religious or spiritual, but you can't be both. This why so many who are raised in religious institutions, and eventually develop a need for a deeper understanding, will ultimately reject the religion in favor of spirituality. "
Amen to you. And it bears repeating. That is the best description I have heard yet! And in my own words, I believe that religious individuals believe they are spiritual because of the Holy Spirit and that couldn't be farther from the truth because they do not see the "beauty", i.e. the spirit in every being; just those of their faith. Many blessings to you!
Maybe there are people who have premonitions of coming disasters and/or impending doom and death.
Let's test the hypothesis and maybe we can create a tool which will predict future major disasters.
Let's have a national or international Homeland Security database where people can post such premontions. Certain info such as their home zip/postal code and work zip/postal code would be kept confidential.
It would be fairly easy to develop realtime analytical programs to detect clusters of premontions surrounding certain geographic locations which could then be used to thwart a potental natural or man made disasters.
If the "spirits" are trying to tell us something in advance, we got to be pretty stupid to keep ignoring them and not using that information to save lives..
Look, regardless of the fact that we think it's superstitious nonesense, a lot of Americans are obviously superstitious and this would at least put this to bed.
OTOH, on the 1/100,000,000,000,000 chance that we're wrong, this could be a tool to be used to minimize the damage of future disasters (natural or man-made).
When a massive tragedy like the attacks of 9/11 occurs, it seems entirely plausable that experiences, visits, sightings, and inner knowing would come to those left behind. I remember that morning so clearly, telling a family member who had called in tears, "We are watching our history change forever. We won't ever be the same." It was as if the spirits of the thousands who died that day were hovering over the burning Twin Towers, and we who were still alive could feel the enormous impact of their departure. Having lost their lives so horrifically, I cannot imagine they would want anything but peace now, for everyone of every faith.
I am almost finished reading Bonnie's book, Messages after having seen a 20/20 segment on it. I recommend it. I think you'll relate to what these people have experienced and it will confirm your own experiences.
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